posts like this i pm as to not knock it off the unanswered threads. sda, hda is deprecated.... just live rescue cd it, and change your grub around, reinstall grub to /dev/sda & all should be well at reboot.

On modern kernels, your drives will be sda, even if they are IDE/PATA drives. Based on the output provided, I think that the kernel the OP tried to use does not even understand the drive in the machine. If I am right, then a kernel rebuild is in your future.

I'm using SILO since I'm on a Sun machine. And my kernel is 3.8.13. I used the hda throughout the install. I know that hda is deprecated but it might not be with Sun machines? When I boot with a rescue cd I successfully use the hda abstraction to the drive.

I just changed my SILO /etc/silo.conf file to root="sda1" and rebooted the machine. I get the same error but now it's

Cannot open root device "sda1" or unknown-block(0,0): error -6

and so forth...

So if I do rebuild the kernel, what should I include in the build; I'm guessing I would build in some hard drive controller and as a module or not as a module.. I'm not sure; and how do I know which one to build in?

The last SUN livecd I recall seeing was so old it used the old /dev/hda IDE names.

However, you will have an up to date kernel and udev, so during the course of the install, you need to change over.
This is a mess - its a lot to get right at the same time and the U10 has probably the worst IDE interface ever made.
My U10 died a few years ago, its been replaced with a Raspberry Pi :)

[https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-4570091.html?sid=3e7b0aeb221171591106608dfd32c1d6#4570091]These[/url] high level settings will be correct for you.
I have a feeling that the SATA Menu has grown a few sub menus since that 2007 post but nothing that a bit of poking around won't find.

Your low level chipset driver is

Code:

<*> CMD / Silicon Image 680 PATA support

which is under [*] ATA SFF support (for legacy IDE and PATA)
It really is dire. I used it for booting, since SILO can only boot fro real SCSI or IDE and fitted a Silicon Image 3112 SATA controller for the root HDD.

I still have an image of my U10 install, so I can dig out the kernel config if you need it._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Even if you use the 680 PATA on the depreciated IDE menu, it should not give you unknown-device (0,0) as a panic message.
/dev/hda and friends will not appear in in /dev but the kernel will still mount root.

A few other random thoughts.
Do you have DEVTMPFS on and MOUNT_DEVTMPFS, immedately under it ?
They are needed to populate /dev too.

What about TMPFS?
Thats needed to create some read/write space in RAM before root is remounted read/write.

"Even if you use the 680 PATA on the depreciated IDE menu, it should not give you unknown-device (0,0) as a panic message.
/dev/hda and friends will not appear in in /dev but the kernel will still mount root. "

So that was a lot to deal with, let's deal with this first; So using that driver, I will not have anything abstracting to it in /dev?

No initrd is required provided that all the things needed to mount root are included in the kernel as <*>, since <M> puts the code into /lib/modules, thus no modules can be loaded until root is mounted.
You need Sun disklable support, so the kernel can read your partition table. MSDOS Partition table Support may be useful later for USB flash.
Either the Depreciated IDE drivers, both the HDD option and the CMD / Silicon Image 680 PATA support chipset option, or the SCSI/SATA equivelents but not both.
Two drivers for the same hardware always ends in tears.

The former will provide your HDD as /dev/hda. The latter at /dev/sda either should allow the kernel to find root.

You will need DEVTMPFS and DEVTPFSMOUNT at boot and TMPFS. Without TMPFS, udev will not start.
You also need the EXT4 filesystem built in - I think dmesg showed you were using EXT4.

Thats pretty much it for must haves.

Oh! ... when you partitioned your HDD, you did use a Sun Disklable didn't you ... with partition 3 as the entire HDD ?
If you go the hda route booting will not complete but root should be mounted, if you the go the sda route and get everything right, it should just work.

CDROM and network support is useful but need not be <*> as its not needed for mounting root._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

When rootfscheck runs it looks into /etc/fstab to find out where root is and what the filesystem type is.

There it will find ext4 and /dev/hdaX, so it will try to run the check on /dev/hdaX, which isn't there, because udev didn't make it.
The check will fail and root will stay mounted read only.

You should get a message along the lines ... press Ctrl-D to continue or give the root password for maintanance.
Ctrl-D does a shutdown and restart The root password logs you in single user mode with no services running and a read only root.

You can continue with the hda route to see if you can get root to mount but its only a debug aid. To get a working system you have to use the new SATA driver for the IDE interface.

If you want, I can dig out my working U10 kernel config from several years ago and host it for you.
I can even host the entire kernel so you only need run make modules_install and copy the kernel binary to /boot. Thats much bigger and may not work today, depending on what has happened to userland meanwhile._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Thats right. If you want the history lesson IDE was derived from SCSI by removing all the things that Compaq thought PC users would not need.
From that time on, vendors have added back various parts in vendor specific ways, so its become a mess.

Round about kernel 2.6.26 IDE was reunited with the SCSI subsystem. At about 2.6.3x udev dropped /dev/hdX support for the old IDE device names.
Its not a kernel related thing - it was a udev decision at around the same time as that kernel was released._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

The numbers in unknown-block (x,y) tell a great deal.
(0,0) means the kernel cannot even see the hard drive. The favourite cause is the low level chip set driver not selected or selected as a module.
Rarer is SCSI Disk Support missing. Rarer still is the partition table code not compiled.

(1,0) means the kernel cannot mount your initramfs. You should not see this unless you have not changed SILO to not use an initramfs.
Trying to use an initramfs when you don't have one is an error, even if you don't need one.

(2,0) at face value, means the kernel could not read your first floppy drive.
It means more than this, since after the kernel loads, it will try every device it can read with every filesystem it knows to mount root.
The floppy drive is the last in the list of devices tried. However, the kernel will print a list of the block devices it can see before the panic.

(8,x) where x <=15 means the kernel found your hard drive /dev/sda but could not read from partition x. Either partition x is not your root partition, it maybe swap, or the filesystem the read from (8,x) is not included in the kernel.

The last SPARC kernel I have is 2.6.32-gentoo-r5 from Feb 2010_________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

i gave a stab at a manual compile. took forever and a half. took a stab at grub9999 though it did not survive make. ext4 in, everything lsmod loaded in, tmpfs in... forgot to run "silo" if it is the same behavior of lilo....